Wealth of Nations

Full employment does not necessarily make a state wealthy. Though a low unemployment rate certainly indicates a strong economy, it does not cause, or point to wealth. As was made quite obvious today during our Bread for Food tour, a job does not guarantee wealth, even on a personal level. Many people work as much as they can, and are still barely able to support themselves and their family. Some aren’t able to even do that, and require assistance. I realize that I’m rambling a bit, but I suppose this is as good a place as any to throw in my definition of wealth, especially considering pretty much the entirety of my post is about that. I would define personal wealth as happiness and contentment, and the monetary means to continued happiness and contentment. Those who have to worry about where they can get the money to feed their family cannot afford to be too concerned with happiness.
On a national scale, full employment does not necessarily breed wealth. Creating jobs simply for the sake of creating jobs would be harmful. There are certain industries which are simply more efficient with more mechanization and fewer people. Someone I was talking to earlier (forgot who, sorry) brought up the example of Soviet Russia employing a hundred people with shovels instead of utilizing a bulldozer. Inefficient industry and a larger workforce will not create additional wealth, just useless and redundant jobs. On the way back from stat class, Andrew said something about high employment leading to inflation. Having no background in economics whatsoever, I really did not understand a whole lot of what he said, but I would highly recommend checking his blog, as I think he will definitely be mentioning this.